Friday, December 14, 2018

Climate Change: If climate scientists ruled the world

I just read an interesting article in the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit that tells what climate scientists would do when they ruled the world. I copy below the English version of this article, as published by Die Zeit. [The idea of climate scientist letting rule the world with respect to climate policies is what I proposed in a post on this blog of two years ago: On the environment I support dictatorship]

We asked nine leading
climate scientists to imagine if they were the sole ruler of the
planet, what they would do to limit global warming if they could make a
unilateral decision and didn't have to resort to negotiations, political
wrangling or compromises. What immediate action would you take?

"A CO2 Tax Makes Technologies Such As Wind and Solar Power Competitive"

I would no longer let countries, companies and citizens emit carbon dioxide (CO2)
for free and would instead immediately introduce a price of 50 euros
for every ton of CO2 emitted. This would hold everyone responsible for
the negative effects of fossil emissions, which include climate change,
air pollution and health problems. A CO2 tax would have three effects:
First, it punishes the consumption of coal, oil and gas according to
their carbon content. Second, it makes CO2-free technologies such as
wind or solar power competitive and drives new investments in that
direction. Third, it generates revenues for governments, which I would
redistribute on a per-capita basis. This would protect poorer households
in particular from higher energy prices and ensure a just transition.
MCC research shows that even a low price for CO2 could finance universal
access to clean water and sanitation in many countries (Nature Climate Change: Jakob et al., 2015). This would make climate policy a success story.

"New Industrial Plants Should Be CO2-Free By 2025"

Niklas Höhne is the director of the New Climate Institute in Berlin and a professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

To keep the climate at
safe levels, global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to zero in
all sectors and countries. This is why I would prescribe, that
everything that is newly built should be emission-free. From now on, for
example, only power plants that use renewable energies should be built,
not new fossil fuel power plants. From the early 2020s, only electric
cars or cars with other CO2-free engines should be sold. And new
industrial plants should be carbon dioxide-free by 2025. The clear time
horizon as of when only zero emission technology can be sold would drive
the necessary innovation. In addition, I would implement a tax on
greenhouse gas emissions to collect financial resources to compensate
for potential negative social effects of this rapid transition, eg. in
regions that are currently dependant on coal mining or use.

The currently implemented climate
policies with the highest impact follow this model even if initially
implemented by only a few. For example, the first electric cars suitable
for series production were developed because the U.S. state of
California introduced a quota for zero-emission cars in the 1990s (CARB ZEV). With minimum quotas for the new registration of electric vehicles, China
is also forcing car manufacturers to expand their product range, which
will then be sold globally. Another example: Wind power, which was
mainly subsidized in Germany, is now being used worldwide – even in
countries that previously did not have an interest in it before, such
as China, India and Australia, due to their large coal reserves.

"All Countries Should Take Stock of the Damage"

Friederike Otto is the acting director of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University in England.

Think of the forest fires
in California in November of this year or on a less dramatic level the
heatwave in Germany and the EU this summer. The methods available today
allow us to attribute such events to human-induced climate change (Annual Review of Environment and Resources: Otto et al., 2017).
At present, however, we simply have no idea about the damages and
losses caused by climate change to date. It is difficult to solve a
problem that is vague and often assumed to be a future problem only. All
countries should therefore develop an inventory so that we can
effectively see the costs of climate change.

About 25 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to food – especially meat products (Climate Change 2014: Smith et al., 2014). We should therefore all immediately adopt the "10 Guidelines of the German Nutrition Society (DGE) for a Wholesome Diet"
– and nourish ourselves with a healthy mix of food that includes a high
proportion of fruit and vegetables. This helps to prevent obesity and
high blood pressure, it would slow global warming and it would
significantly lower the nitrogen pollution in our groundwater. This is
because most nitrogen is produced in agriculture to grow feed crops for
animals or comes from animal manure (The European Nitrogen Assessment: Sutton et al., 2011).
People in rich countries should reduce their meat consumption to 600
grams per week as soon as possible and to 300 grams per week later: For
Germans, this would mean first cutting meat consumption in half and then
reducing it to two or three small portions a week. At the same time, I
would double the research funding for plant-based alternatives to meat.

"We Need Public Transport and Better Teleconferencing"

Gabriele Clarissa Hegerl is a professor of climate system sciences at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

I would create reliable,
fast and convenient public transport, so that short-haul flights are
unnecessary and many more people can commute by public transport.
Another very practical measure would be to improve teleconferencing.
This could help us to avoid many short-haul journeys and flights, which
in turn would significantly reduce our CO2 footprint. Avoiding air
travel altogether is one of the most effective measures for
significantly reducing an individual's greenhouse gas emissions (Environmental Research Letters: Wynes and Nicholas, 2017).

"Our Biosphere Must Be Protected To Store Carbon"

Yadvinder Malhi is a professor of ecosystem science at Oxford University in England.

We must preserve and
restore our ecosystems to store and absorb carbon, to regulate local and
regional rainfall, and to maintain a moderate climate. Our forests and
soils contain significant amounts of carbon, so deforestation has a
direct impact on our climate. Tropical regions, for example, are the
engines of atmospheric circulation. The loss of rainforest, which is
transformed into cattle farms or oil palm plantations, also affects
distant regions such as Europe, Siberia and North America. It also has
an indirect effect on rainfall and cloud formation. Clouds, in turn,
reflect sunlight and cool our planet. Our actions do not only have local
consequences, the scale of our activities is much larger.

We also need to think
more about restoring forests and other ecosystems in the heavily
transformed landscapes of Europe. We must protect intact areas and
change our policy incentives in the north to restore forests on
abandoned or marginal farmlands. Nature is not an external cost factor
that can be included in or omitted from our economic model. Nature is
one of our most important allies in reducing the scale and impact of
climate change.

Angelika Hilbeck is with the Institute for Integrative Biology at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

Most of the food we buy
in supermarkets comes from industrial agriculture, especially in
developed countries, but increasingly worldwide. This form of intensive
farming is based on chemical inputs and practices that are
energy-intensive and harmful to the environment. According to the IPCC,
it contributes to more than 20 percent of global human-caused greenhouse
gas emissions (IPCC, Working Group III: Mitigation, 2014).
We must therefore use agro-ecological production systems instead. This
means applying ecological and social concepts in food design, changing
farming practices and following these principles in our agricultural
systems.

Another consequence: With
improved agriculture, we preserve biodiversity, the fertility of our
soils and contribute to feeding humanity. The UN Human Rights Council reported this in 2010. Our agriculture can thus become part of the solution rather than a problem that contributes to climate change.

"Products Should Be Labeled with CO2"

Per
Espen Stoknes is the author of the book "What We Think About When We
Try Not To Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of
Climate Action."

All products and services
worldwide should be marketed and sold with clear labeling of their CO2
emissions and their environmental footprint. The life cycle of the
product should be fully understandable to the consumer. Whether the
product has a positive, neutral or negative footprint should be as
prominent as the purchase price. And it should be easy to understand
where and how the products were made and who made them. This could be
possible, for example, with blockchain databases that trace and store
the data and path of the product. This would make it easy for customers
to choose greener products in all markets and prevent products from
being advertised with a sustainable label without clear evidence.
Greenwashing would no longer be possible.

"We Need Politicians To Represent Our Interests"

Michael Mann is the director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center in University Park, Pennsylvania.

In the United States, we currently provide more subsidies for fossil fuels than for renewable energies.
This is the opposite of what is required. We need politicians who
represent our interests rather than fossil fuel interests. At the
moment, the U.S. federal government is led by the latter. My wish
therefore goes to my fellow Americans who believe that we have to act on
climate change: Make your voice heard. An effective solution must
include both personal action and government policy. But the former can
be encouraged by the latter, so we must focus on policy intervention,
which includes electing climate-friendly politicians. That’s the single
most important thing we can do right now.

About Me

As a kid I liked numbers and the sound of strings. I considered studying engineering but chose social sciences because of my interest in people. I combine a theoretical interest with a practical, social approach which brought me to the sphere of policy research. I am interested in reducing the disparity between poor and rich, between the powerful and the less powerful.
In 1973 and 1982 I lived in Latin America. In the mid-1980s, I was able to create an international forum to discuss the functioning of the international monetary system and the debt crisis, the Forum on Debt and Development (FONDAD). I established it with the view that the debt crisis of the 1980s was a symptom of a malfunctioning, flawed global monetary and financial system.
I was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the European Network on Debt and Development that was established at the end of the 1980s to help put pressure on European policymakers.
In 1990, before the beginning of the Gulf War, I cofounded the Golfgroep, a discussion group about international politics comprising journalists, scientists, politicians and activists that meets regularly.
The website of FONDAD is www.fondad.org